


Harry Potter and the Pain of Comfort

by salazarinadress



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Best Friends, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Harry is Ron's Exception, Idiots in Love, Lies, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutually Unrequited, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:15:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27815944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salazarinadress/pseuds/salazarinadress
Summary: I stopped writing tags because "Idiots in Love" was perfect.Harry has lived with Ron in their poky flat for years. He also happens to have been in love with the guy for so long he can barely remember how it started, but he knows for certain that Ron will never, ever feel the same way. He tells himself he's okay with that. It's fine... until he is forced out of the cupboard, and finds that he's not the only one who's been keeping secrets.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ron Weasley
Comments: 30
Kudos: 160





	Harry Potter and the Pain of Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> I do not ship this ship. I started writing it a few months ago because someone on the HPSlashFic subreddit was asking for recommendations, and everyone replied in the comments like "nah I don't ship it" and I felt a desire to do the same. Instead, I resolved to do my very best to understand and imagine a Ron and Harry that love each other romantically. This is what I came up with xD
> 
> To those of you who read me other works, it's not as angsty (or long), just fluff with a bit of angst from misunderstandings. I hope you enjoy it! Oh, and I drew a picture again, which is at the end, if I remember how to make it work.
> 
> Love from Sally~

Undoing the neck of his restrictive auror robes with a rough hand, Harry flops sideways onto the sofa with a huff and looks across at Ron. Sat calmly in his armchair, reading glasses perched at the end of his nose. Like an old man, he is. They both are - Harry with his aches and pains, and Ron with his reading glasses and his armchair by the cold hearth and his endless reading of newspapers. They’re what, thirty two? Thirty four? Merlin.

With the sort of uncomfortable energy that follows him through every hour of the week, Harry scrambles round amongst the cushions and then props himself up and slams his feet down on the magazine- and takeaway-laden coffee table. An old newspaper slips gently to the floor. He gives Ron a second glance, but his flatmate (who would have thought they’d still be flatmates after all this bloody time?) simply flips to the next page of the paper. Harry’s temper tantrums are nothing new to him.

Harry huffs again, crossing his arms over his chest and staring up at the ceiling. Why’s he still here? He vaguely remembers making a promise to himself on his thirtieth birthday - _end this hell_. He was going to finish it by Christmas, move out, make his excuses and slowly remove Ron from his life until he could get rid of this… this-

He doesn’t know what it bloody is, but it’s comfortable and nice and heartening and warm and generally lovely. Coming home to the smell of Ron’s strong coffee, and to dust and old laundry - well, it just makes him so happy. Which is why he has to end it, and also why he hasn’t, all these years later, despite the fact that Ron can never know. He’d break Harry’s heart.

And it wouldn’t even be a problem right now, if not for the fact that Harry’s latest fuckbuddy-come-boyfriend has decided not to be his fuckbuddy-come-boyfriend any longer, leaving him with a lot of energy and stress to burn off, and no one to do it with. So instead he has to sit here in this crowded, homely, wonderful, comfortable living room with Ron Bloody Weasley and his tidily trimmed ginger beard and his freckles and his angular face and his big hands and his knowing looks and his stupid jokes and… and it’s the _worst_.

“Pissy today, mate?”

Harry closes his eyes, lets himself imagine that phrase delivered ever so slightly different. The same comfortable we’ve-been-married-twenty-years, _yes dear_ tone, the same light frown over his evening paper, looking at Harry over the top of his (“I’m not a bloody old man yet, okay Harry?”) glasses with his head tilted just so.

_Pissy today, love?_

He’s not sure when he started doing this, maybe as a joke in his mind because people always treat them like an old married couple. It’s been bordering on an obsession for the last five years, placing that word in there like it belongs.

“No,” he responds shortly, scowling.

“Hmmm,” Ron says, flicking the top of his paper back into place with a practiced movement. He lifts his mug and takes a long gulp, and the strong, pleasant aroma of coffee wafts over to Harry. Rom smacks his lips. “Weird, cos for a second there I thought you were being a twat having another one of your moods. My mistake.”

Harry just keeps scowling.

“This about the argument?” Ron asks after a long pause, eyes back on his paper.

The question blindsides Harry for a moment, and he straightens up his robes, settling his feet more comfortably on the coffee table to pull his thoughts together. Yes, he’s pissy today. Yes, it’s about the argument. But how the fuck does Ron know about it?

He sighs. Of course Ron bloody knows. He’s like a psychic sometimes, or a legilimens, always knowing Harry’s moods, reading signs in the crema on the surface of his morning coffee or something. Not that Harry’s very subtle with all the traipsing around, grumbling under his breath about _fucking Auror Fevorro_. He leans back, watches Ron take another sip of coffee.

“You’ll be up all night,” Harry says, nodding at the mug.

Ron shrugs, a lop-sided smile creeping over his face. It’s one of the things - despite the way he’s mellowed out over time, becoming more and more like his father - that still shouts of the Ron Weasley of Hogwarts. His crooked smile, almost childish in its genuinity, that so often cracks outwards into an equally lop-sided grin. His eyes and cheeks hold permanent lines attesting to his cheerful countenance, in direct contrast to the one that sits constantly between Harry’s eyebrows. No, Harry hasn’t mellowed at all, but he’s comfortable with his flaws. “All according to plan,” Ron states. “Accounts due Friday, and you know I don’t do anything until I have to, so I’ve got like ten months’ worth of receipts and invoices to put in the wrong columns.” He leans forward on his elbows, folding the paper away with an intent look, eyebrows slightly raised at Harry. “So?”

Harry looks away, wishes he grabbed a mug of his own to hide behind - decaf obviously, he keeps long hours as an auror and every minute of sleep is precious. Not like Ron, who wakes at eleven and bumbles his way through the day. Well, that’s not fair, but Harry isn’t in a mood to be fair. He shuffles his feet, scuffing their poor long-suffering coffee table with reddish clay from a chase earlier this afternoon. “It’s over,” he says simply. “I thought it could work. Thought I could _make_ it work.” He shrugs again, to show how that went. “But I was wrong.”

“Oh,” Ron says, obviously surprised, and Harry looks up again to catch it. He doesn’t often see Ron surprised, these days. The expression slips into a confused sort of discomfort - Harry knows that one well. “So this argument was with… with your, uh, partner?”

Hah. If only Ron knew the half of it. Partner at work, partner at… play. Furtive back-of-the-pub fucking behind concealment charms, to take the edge off after a difficult case. No one knows. Fevorro’s married; Harry’s private. He did think that maybe they could establish their partnership in a more permanent way though - not asking the guy to break up with his wife or anything, just… staying at a hotel sometimes, waking up together after shagging in an actual bed. Not just mutual sucking off in dirty corners. Fevorro apparently didn’t have the same plans. Which is cool and fine and everything…

Hell, though. There really wasn’t a need to be such a dick about it.

“Sorry,” Harry sighs, feeling bad for Ron. “I know you don’t wanna hear me talking about it.” Every time Harry tries bringing up his love life, Ron quickly changes the subject, turns it into an awkward joke or suddenly remembers that he needs to do something in the other room. Hardly subtle, but then it’s not like Harry ever enjoyed listening to Ron gripe on and on about how he and ‘Mione didn’t work out, and how she gets the handsome new boyfriend-come-husband, the shiny life with a lovely kitchen and a big garden and a good job, and he’s stuck here living with Harry in their flat they should have outgrown eight years ago, with its washing machine constantly having meltdowns and their dirty laundry hanging limply over every available surface.

It’s a small flat, they’ve never needed bigger, but it’s not a lot of space to share with someone else. They live in each others’ pockets, and Harry supposes keeping their love lives separate is probably the only thing keeping them sane. Neither of them brings their shags back to the flat. Their one unwritten rule. For Harry though, it’s a bit more than that. Living here would be infinitely more awkward if Ron were to find out that he’s living with a gay man, and that this ‘colleague’ Harry’s been talking about seeing is a wizard rather than a witch. A tall wizard with auburn hair darker than Harry would like, and skin too tanned and-

“I don’t- Uh. I mean…” Ron holds the mug up to his face, hiding an awkward grimace. “It’s not that. Well, it is, but... Merlin Harry, I’m sorry.”

He throws the newspaper over to Harry’s sofa, and Harry picks it up with a lazy hand, frowning, unfolds it over his stomach. It’s the evening edition, headline something to do with centaurs. “What am I looking for?” He asks uneasily, flicking through the pages, but finds it before Ron has to answer. Page six, bottom right hand corner. Him and Fevorro.

It’s nothing explicit, perfectly innocent in fact. Well, sort of. How did they-?

Harry looks up from the looping photograph of him slapping Fevorro soundly in the face late this morning, after some barbed comment about Harry being a mediocre fuck and not good for much else. He can’t even remember the exact words. “Ah,” is all he can think to say to Ron. Because he could have played off the argument being about any of a million things if he’d seen it first, but it’s a bit late now.

The tiny paragraph next to the photo casts some speculation about tensions on their latest case, and everyone at the Ministry knows that Fevorro almost fucked the whole thing up, but Harry would never slap a coworker for something like that. Still, the article falls so far from the truth that he’s actually surprised. The Prophet hasn’t managed to print a single true word about him so far, but somehow he’d expect this to buck the trend. They don’t know. How could they?

What reason has he given anyone - shag partners aside - to suspect that he might be gay? No one would ever put two and two together looking at this photograph, because they only have one of the twos.

Except for Ron. Who now has two twos and has, using the grand intellect of a chess master, put them together and come up with the correct answer of four.

Harry clears his throat. “Shit, uh. I- Look, it’s not like I meant to hide anything from you, it’s just… You know. I…” Jesus, he doesn’t know how to do this. It’s not how he imagined coming out would be. To be fair, he’s never given it much thought at all, never planned on doing it. “Okay, look. Let’s just… I don’t know. Restart.” He scrubs his hands over his face, pulls back his hair and then looks Ron in the eye. “Hi. I’m gay.”

This is how they deal with awkward shit. They make so much light of it that it floats off, off and away into the atmosphere, never to be spoken of again. Like the time he came home early to find Ron crying watching Bambi on ITV2. He could choose to take the piss every day, but he doesn’t. Move on and forget. He’s not sure they can do that here, but it’s worth a shot. So long as he doesn’t make out like it’s a big deal.

Ron pauses for a few seconds longer, his eyes frozen as his brain ticks about. Dismissing stupid questions, probably remembering all the times he’s walked through the flat after a shower without a t-shirt on - navigating his thoughts before coming up with a response. It’s a tense, horrible pause, through which Harry tries his best to keep his shoulders relaxed and his feet casually crossed on the coffee table as if they’re talking about work, the weather, life.

Finally, Ron’s mouth twitches. His expression changes in a thousand tiny ways, his eyes dancing with a new light. Harry breathes out slowly. It’s going to be fine. He knows that face, has seen it a million times - there’s a war going on right now, a terrible battle in Ron’s mind, played out across his features. Deciding whether or not to say the stupid joke that’s just popped into existence between his ears. The smile twists inwards minutely, lips pinched shut between his teeth, and Harry’s heart beats for the loveliness of it. He knows exactly what Ron is going to say before he opens his mouth, because it’s the most idiotic and un-funny thing he can imagine.

“Hello gay, I’m Ron.”

He can’t help it. He just cannot help himself, the poor sod. Harry thinks suddenly, forcefully and not for the first time, that Ron would make an excellent dad. He would have made a truly, truly excellent father.

And it’s just so bloody stupid, so he laughs. The sound bursts free of Harry’s chest under the pressure of that free-falling moment, of knowing Ron so well that he knows, just _knows_ what he’s going to say. Of being right. It makes him feel close, like Ron’s a part of him, like Ron _has_ a part of him. It lifts him, and he roars with unnecessarily boisterous laughter, clutching at his stomach. It’s such a Ron response, he can’t help it, can’t help loving it. Loving _him_.

Oh, God. He wipes his eyes dry with trembling fingers, wheezing the last rumblings of joy through his aching chest. Opposite him Ron is doing the same, because he can’t help but laugh at his own jokes any more than Harry can. With his stomach still churning and aching, Harry flops the paper onto the coffee table between them. “Fuck, Ron. You’re such a child, remind me again where you got your dad jokes from, when you haven’t got any bloody kids?”

Ron blows out his cheeks, splaying his hands in a _beats me_ gesture, and sets off again in a more subdued bout of chuckling. He accio’s the newspaper back, flicks it open. Harry can’t see if it’s the page with him on. He doesn’t want Ron looking at it; doesn’t like thinking of himself as the kind of person who goes around slapping people, even when they’ve seriously pissed him off.

“So what’d he do?” Ron asks, after leaving just enough time for Harry to think it’s all done with and that neither of them will bring it up again for the rest of their lives.

He shrugs, shaking his head to indicate that it’s nothing of consequence. Fevorro really was nothing, and he’s not even hurt by the loss. He was annoyed at the attitude, more than anything, but now that he’s back home with Ron it barely feels worth pondering.

“Mate,” Ron says. _Love_. “Are you really gunna leave me hanging like this?”

“I thought you didn’t wanna know anything about my love life,” Harry grumbles. He sits up to take off his outer robe. It’s like shedding a bloody corset, and he breathes easier without the thing. The Ministry logo stares up at him from the lapels, and he’s not sure why but he turns it over.

Ron folds the paper down again, and gives Harry a _look_. It’s all that’s needed.

Harry folds the robe up in his lap, just for something to do with his hands. “We’ve been fucking. I suggested maybe we could fuck and then hang out, he suggested maybe he doesn’t wanna see my ugly face after we fuck, that he can barely cope seeing the back of my head while we’re doing it, and then I suggested maybe he’d like to see the back of my head one last time as I walk the fuck away.” It’s the most glib way he can think of to present the facts, to let Ron know that he’s not terribly heartbroken about the whole thing. Then again, it’s exactly what he’d say if he _was_ heartbroken, so he’ll have to leave it up to Ron - who is looking at him as if he wants to say something, again. Harry rolls his eyes. “Oh my God, Ron. You’re such a fucking troll. Yes, he was looking at the back of my head because I was taking it up the arse. You’re so puerile.”

Ron grins, doing an amicable job of acting like this is a totally normal, fine thing for them to be talking about, while his ears go red. “I didn’t say anything, mate,” he says, picking his coffee mug up from the arm of the chair, where it can’t possibly have been safe to balance. Sticking charm. Even after all these years, this casual-convenience kind of magic often shocks Harry. He can’t imagine putting a teacup down on anything but a flat, stable surface.

“I could see it on your face,” Harry accuses.

He feels suffocated suddenly, uncertain about their dynamic, how things might change - or how he _hopes_ they might change. Which is stupid, because Ron’s straight as a bloody lamp post.

Without conscious thought, Harry stands quickly and turns his back to Ron. This puts him face to face with their record collection, so he steps up to the shelves and looks for something to play. 

A few bars of something catchy’ll take the weirdness out of the evening. His finger falters over the _Love Songs For Losers_ album Hermione got them as a shared gift last Christmas. Harry’s lip quirks into half a smile at that - they get shared gifts from the people around them. It’s probably because they always _buy_ shared gifts for others, just to save the pain of thinking up two things to get every year. Still, it speaks volumes about the shared assumptions of their closest friends and family. If no one else around them thinks they’re going to break up - uh, move apart - any time soon, then what fear should Harry have?

“Don’t you dare!” Ron calls as Harry reaches up for _King Bang Meringue_ ’s debut single from two years ago. He taps the edge a couple of times just to tease, but he’s not really in the mood for ‘sick beatz’ either, so he ends up pulling out a well-worn grey sleeve instead.

With _Expel Me, Arm Us_ set up on the turn-table, he lowers the arm and steps lightly back to the sofa. It seems quite unfair that Harry should get an entire three-person settee as his own personal territory, while Ron only has the poky little armchair, but they both prefer it like this. Ron complains that he needs back support after working in his shop all day, while Harry just wants something soft to flop bonelessly onto and fall asleep in when he can’t be shitted with the short twelve-step stumble to his bed. This smells better than bed, anyway.

The music starts, a low _rat-tat-tss, rat-tat-tss, rat-ta-ta-tss, rat-tat-tss_ of drum and snare growing in volume as a single rumbling note of bass plays counter to the beat. Harry lowers himself into the sofa, closing his eyes to really feel the music, the flirting aggression between the two instruments. Then the electric guitar joins, long sensuous notes against the urgent bass riff, lulling the others into just two eight counts of wonderful harmony before... Harry breathes in sharply as the music jumps up, guitar sliding a new tune over the drum’s complex pattern of kicks. It plucks its way along his ribs, down his stomach. Fuck, he loves this song. He plays along to an imaginary guitar, eyes squeezed shut as the music escapes through his arms, though he has no idea how guitars actually work. He just plucks and moves his hands in the air in a disordered, satisfying series of jerking motions.

“Hey, I know we’re talking about personal shit now, but I don’t need to see you having a bloody orgasm in the living room,” Ron rumbles. His annoyance rings hollow though, because they’ve gone to no fewer than six _Expel Me_ gigs together, decked in matching band shirts, black skinny jeans and eyeliner. Ron loves this song almost as much as Harry does, though he prefers the third track, _Unrequited_. The subject hits too close to home for Harry.

Harry’s had quite a lot of orgasms in this room, and at least a few of those have been to this song, so he lets a wide grin spread over his face, making his cheeks tingle, and then opens his eyes to look at Ron purposefully. _I’ve had a morning wank here more times than you could count_ , he thinks, twitching his eyebrows.

Ron’s cheeks pink under that gorgeous beard, and Harry’s grin widens. Then Dewi Bridges’ absolutely stunning, smoky voice starts up the first verse of the song, and Harry holds the stare through it, mouthing along:

_Spell light, the longest shadows of night_ _  
_ _Expel sight, the little shade that I fight_  
_To you, my skull’s a cauldron to stew_ _  
_ But what's new, the way you got me it’s got me good

The drum kicks up a notch, and Harry taps out an approximation of the beat on his thighs. “Thought you had accounting to do?” he says between the epic drum bit and the epic guitar bit.

Ron’t eyes widen. “Bollocks,” he swears, scrambling up from the armchair and striding - with long, powerful legs - to an overburdened desk which sags dilapidated against the far wall. Not that the far wall is all that far. It feels even closer for all the papers, post-its and ancient reminders hanging off it in droopy layers. Harry watches the back of Ron’s head, unsure why anyone could have anything bad to say about the back of someone’s head. He puts a hand up to his own scalp, just in case he’s started thinning or something awful like that. But no, the Potter genes are still holding him in good stead.

Ron’s hands move busily for the first few minutes - through the second verse, the first chorus and the long squealing guitar solo - and then he settles into a crouch over his papers, occasionally scratching his ear in that way he does when he can’t work something out.

Harry closes his eyes and goes back to the song, half-humming the chorus to himself as he taps out the drum beat on his leg.

_Amortentia, she got you in danger_

_Amortentia, she loves the way ya_

_Go mad for amortentia, mors venit ad te_

**

It winds up being a good thing he came out to Ron that evening, because he doesn’t get the courtesy of a private chat with the rest of the bloody world.

“Harry, I just saw-“

Ron is cut off by the slam of Harry’s bedroom door between them.

Not that Ron’s done anything to deserve it, but Harry is angry, and sometimes when he’s angry he’s just mad at everyone for no reason until he’s had a few minutes to himself.

He throws himself onto his bed, whose sheets were probably washed at least once in the last five years, and smothers himself in the pillow with a groan.

Fuuuuuuuck.

God, it smells. He breathes old sweat and dust for a minute as a sort of punishment for his own stupidity, and then sits up, disgusted, and pulls the pillow case off. Then he stands and grabs the others, and the duvet cover, and the sheet. Shoves them all in a pile by the door, along with all the dirty clothes he can gather up in his newfound manic desire for cleanliness, and then carries them out into the living room.

Ron gives him a look from his desk - accounts due tomorrow morning, and he looks like shit - and then quietly turns back to his work. _It’s one of those moods_ , his shoulders say. He’ll stay out of Harry’s way until he’s worked it all out.

So Harry collects all their dirty laundry into one gigantic pile, wrestles as much of it as he can into the washing machine, and switches it on. He does the dishes as well, the tap sputtering and choking in a pathetic attempt at filling the sink. He wipes down all the surfaces, spells the dishes dry and has them marching back into cupboards they haven’t seen in weeks. He banishes the old piles of magazines, after setting aside the latest Prophet Ron probably isn’t done with yet, and banishes the dust as well. He hoovers the muggle way, still not speaking even when Ron lifts his feet to allow the hoover under his desk.

He cleans the entire flat, apart from Ron’s bedroom, and then flings himself dramatically onto the sofa, arm over his face. He’s sweaty and dusty, but most of the anger has dissipated. Bloody Fevorro.

“Bit shit, the whole thing,” Ron says into the silence.

Understatement of the century.

Harry half shrugs, half nods. It _is_ a bit shit. Having concluded that he was gunna get no more shags out of the boy who lived, the fuckbuddy-come-snitch went and sold him out to the papers instead. Probably got a pretty sickle for his trouble, and somehow managed to keep his own name out of it. Harry supposes he should be surprised no one did it before now. “What’re they saying?” Harry asks. He’s too afraid to look at the papers, himself. Not that this is his first rodeo, but it’s different to the previous stories they’ve printed about him. It’s actually true, for one thing. He can’t look.

He hears Ron’s lumbering footsteps, the tap squealing for a few seconds, and then the gas hob flickering to life. “Make me one?” Harry calls as Ron opens up a fresh pack of coffee beans, spilling the heady, rich aroma into the air. With his eyes still covered, Harry can see Ron in his mind’s eye standing in the kitchen, scooping out a precise measure into the grinder. _You sure, love?_

“Uh, you sure, mate? Don’t you have work tomorrow?” So close. Almost close enough.

“No.”

“Oh dear,” Ron replies. Another understatement, considering the scene Harry caused while in a manic state of _well shit_ just over an hour ago. Too late to hit the evening papers, but it’ll be a wonderful addition to the front page tomorrow.

“Do you ever wish you could take back like an hour of your life? Delete it?” Harry asks, swinging his arm down to his side and looking sideways at Ron.

“Not really, but then I try not to be a bloody idiot in the first place,” Ron says, and from anyone else Harry would consider it an offense. Ron clicks on the grinder and the loud noise fills the flat for eight seconds, then he slams his fist down on the top a couple times - it’s a jammy old thing - and tips out the container into a cafetiere. He turns, standing with his hip against the counter. “What’d you do this time?”

God he’s handsome, with his wide shoulders, shoulder-length bright copper hair and slightly darker beard. It’s not just the looks though, it’s that easy confidence, the way he fills the space around him with his character. Harry looks away.

“Something idiotic,” he says, leaning down to undo his shoelaces. “You can read about it tomorrow.”

“Fuck off!” Ron laughs. “What’s the point in being best mates with the saviour of wizarding Britain, if I don’t get the goss before every tom, duck and silly?”

The kettle whistles loudly before Harry can answer, and Ron gives him a _this isn’t over, sunshine_ look before flicking the top open and turning off the stove. He spends the next three and a half minutes concentrating on his perfect brew while Harry tries to come up with the right words to describe the absolute pigsty he’s made of his working relationships today. He removes his robe, undoes the top few buttons of his shirt and rolls up the sleeves.

_Well you see, the thing is that I might have started a fight. A brawl, if you will, in which twelve aurors and two unfortunate bystanders were sent to St Mungos._

_Job, huh? I definitely had one of those. This morning._

“Just tell me it didn’t involve fireworks,” Ron says in a mock-tired voice, putting their mugs down on the coffee table while it’s temporarily clear of debris. He lowers himself like an old man into the armchair.

“Merlin, Ron. That was six years ago,” Harry protests. “And entirely Neville’s fault.”

“I’m not hearing a no,” Ron replies, smiling into his hand. He has a habit of scratching his fingers through his beard when he’s worried.

Harry sighes, takes pity on him. “It started with a comment. I don’t know, just a few words, dirty fag or whatever. Fine. I don’t know. Then…” he gestures vaguely in a duel-like manner with his right hand. “Might have thrown a jinx or two, just to shut ‘em up.”

“And?” Ron prompts, because he knows there’s more, because he always knows, when it comes to Harry.

Harry picks up his coffee, smells it. Amazing. He’s not as fussy as Ron, but he does appreciate the art. “And maybe I missed one of the shots, caught Auror Pedalo on the backside with a stinging jinx. And when he turned round, I looked at Auror Jackson like this-“ he half turns, demonstrating the look of surprised outrage he’d used in a panic, to make Pedalo think that Jackson had done it. “-and then Auror Pedalo might have said a few choice words, one of which was a werephobic slur, which quite understandably got Auror Baz’ back up, and _she_ started throwing hexes. And I ducked so she got Auror _Jackson_ , who decided it was all my fault and that he’d like to turn me into a cockerel, which he did.”

“Mm? And?”

Harry takes a steadying breath, rubbing his forehead with a tired hand. “And then I pecked all their shins to shreds, and the entire room broke out into a mad battle, and when the spell faded I was crawling naked over the desks trying to bite everyone’s kneecaps off as they clung to the chandeliers.”

Ron grins. “And just at that moment…?”

Harry doesn’t say it, doesn’t need to. What a time for Robards to come visiting. “And just at that moment,” he agrees, blowing on his hot coffee.

Ron sits back, leaning sideways with his elbow on one arm of the chair. His hair swishes to the side. “Well, at least we have the shop to keep us afloat,” he jokes. His easy smile wipes away some of the stress of losing their primary source of income.

Harry pauses in the act of removing his socks to raise his brows at Ron. “You’re actually turning a profit these days?”

Ron laughs as if that’s the funniest thing he’s heard today. Harry’s wages have been paying not only for the flat, but the shop’s deficit as well. “No, but I always thought the big oak counter would make a good raft. We could lash it to some empty water barrels on either end, make a sail out of old bean sacks.” Ron demonstrates the movements with animated flicks of his bony hands. They’re in so much shit, but Harry can’t help but grin.

“So what you’re really saying is I need a new job,” he points out. “And fast. Know of anything?”

Ron’s brows go up and he straightens up in his chair. His hair brushes over his shoulder to lie with the ends flicked up. Merlin, how Harry wants to- “Not for a hot-headed ex auror in the middle of a scandal in the papers, no.” Ron answers with humour.

There’s just something about gingers with beards, Harry thinks. It gets right to him, and he wishes that Ron would leave the room and go to bed early so that Harry can lie here and imagine him determinedly _not_ leaving the room and going to bed early. Damn, he needs a shag. He can’t live with Ron while he’s this bloody horny.

“Think I’m- I’ll just go sleep it off,” he says, rising from the sofa. “You have accounts to finish.”

“Harry-“ Ron grabs his arm on his way past, and a jolt goes through Harry. He concentrates on looking down at his mate’s face. There’s a quiet, serious intensity to his words. “We’ll sort this. It’ll be fine, alright?”

Harry nods, mouth dry, and scrambles away as soon as he’s released.

God. Oh God. He falls onto his sheetless bed, arm burning where Ron touched it, and mind equally aflame from the look in Ron’s eyes. He wastes no time casting his privacy charms and sliding a hand down into his trousers.

_“Harry-“ Ron grabs his arm on his way past, and a jolt goes through Harry. He concentrates on looking down at his mate’s face, though Ron is more free with his own gaze. There’s a quiet, serious intensity to his words. “We’ll sort this. Together. I love you, alright?”_

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, trying to push himself to finish as quickly as possible so he doesn’t have to consider the embarrassment of wanking to the idea of being loved.

His mind flicks quickly through all his favourite scenarios and memories. Arms wrapped around each others’ shoulders at gigs, Ron making him a sandwich to eat while on stakeout, or grinning at him over the top of his paper, atrociously unthoughtful gifts for every birthday and Christmas, dropping plans to take Harry out for drinks when he’s down, all the million quiet ways he treats Harry like Arthur treats Molly. It’s so close, so bloody close to love it’s like the moment before orgasm, stretched out for a decade. The moment just before they tip over into ecstasy.

His hips jerk up a few more times, and he’s done. He spells himself clean, casts an air refreshing charm and drops the privacy spell. He lies on his bed with its scratchy mattress and ancient yellow duvet, huffing.

It doesn’t matter how close they are - that one step might as well be a million miles, because Ron Weasley doesn’t love him. He’s not even bloody gay.

**

Harry’s got himself a job in a muggle call center. It’s all a bit absurd, but owing to favourable pound-galleon conversion rates, it pays almost as well as being an auror. Which makes him a bit angry, if he’s honest.

It’s also driving him crazy, sitting at a desk all day reading off a script and not being able to do anything to help the person on the other side. He’s sure he’ll get fired any day now, but he’s managed to put it off so far by placing a very mild confounding charm on his booth so that the supervisor always forgets what he came to tell Harry.

He still hasn’t found a replacement shag, and things are getting dire. Tomorrow’s Friday though, so he can always hit a bar somewhere with his most pretty glamour and hope for a quick fuck in the loos. He’s not aiming for much - just to keep all the different ways he wants Ron categorised, separated off from one another so they can’t join forces and overwhelm him. He doesn’t need his libido joining in with his heart, his soul, his mind… Merlin, that’d be everything he is. He can’t aim it all at Ron, they’d both _combust_.

“Running again?” Ron asks as he stomps into the living room. His hair is a mess, almost as bad as Harry’s, and the bags under his eyes from accounting two weeks ago still haven’t disappeared. Harry’s not sure how to express his concern, so he doesn’t.

“I feel all pent up after sitting down all day, gotta get it out somehow,” Harry replies, doing up the shoelaces on his trainers.

“That why you were gone for three hours yesterday?”

Harry looks up with a grin. “Were you-“ _worried_ ? The word dies on his lips because he can clearly see that Ron _is_. Standing next to his armchair with a harried frown and an uncharacteristically hesitant slant to his shoulders. Harry hasn’t seen him like this since school. “I just need to let off some steam,” he assures Ron.

“I’ll come with you then,” Ron says. His tone is adamant, though the rest of him doesn’t look as certain.

“You don’t need to do that,” Harry responds quickly, as Ron turns back into his bedroom. The last thing he needs is Ron running beside him with those long legs, breathing heavily and skin flushed from exertion. “I like to run on my own.”

Ron’s head appears round the edge of his door, and Harry catches a brief, terrifyingly glorious glimpse of his bare shoulder. “Tough titties, mister. Should’ve thought of that before letting me think you were dead for hours.”

“You didn’t think I was dead,” Harry calls, recalling their conversation when he got home last night. “You thought I was on the pisser.”

Ron reappears, dressed in a t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms Harry hasn’t seen in at least two years. He gives Harry a look on his way to the hall to find his trainers. “Excuse me for assuming, but you don’t exactly have a track record for great decision making.”

Harry stands up. “I’ll have you know I never drink on school nights.”

“Mm, saving that for tomorrow?” Ron leans against the wall to pull his tatty old trainers on. He doesn’t even undo the laces first, just struggles into them with his ginormous feet. “Muggle club or something?”

“No, I just-“ Harry pouts. Fine, so Ron has him all worked out. That’s nothing new. “Yeah. Told you, gotta let off some steam.”

Ron straightens up, still pushing his toes into his trainers with a grimace. He raises an eyebrow at Harry. “Well let’s see how much steam you have left after a few rounds of the park with me.”

Harry’s heart stops. Oh, if only Ron knew.

—

Even for a music lover like Harry, it’s too loud in the club. With such an advanced sound system the tune should come through in perfect, crisp notes - instead, it’s a thumping jumble that shakes his lungs but not his heart. It’s 90s night so the place is packed full of men, women and enbies in school uniforms and colourful tracksuits, tacky gel-spiked hair or ponytails with glittery butterfly clips. Harry’s worst nightmare, so it’s a good thing he’s not here for the vibes.

He gets to the bar and loudly orders himself a vodka and coke, looking both ways along the counter for someone he might like to buy a drink for. No one catches his eye. A dire night indeed, he might actually need to do some dancing.

He tells the young man serving drinks to keep the change, and receives a brief customer-friendly smile. He’s practically jostled back into the crowd anyway, and neither the bar staff nor Harry have the time to waste chatting. He stumbles out onto the dance floor, plastic cup in hand, and lets the rhythm of the music capture him.

It’s hardly a masterpiece, and the acoustics are ruined by all the bodies mashed together, dancing, shouting. He tries to lose himself in the overpowering reverberations of the bass in his bones, ignoring the loss of the tiny details of a record played in his own living room. He keeps the dancing minimal, just enough head bopping to not look like a dickhead as he scans his way through the room.

He finds his mark. Not all that hard, considering he often chooses the tallest man in the room. This one’s broad-shouldered and lean, with a dark well-kept beard. He’s also wearing his work jacket, with the SIA card displayed clearly in the transparent pocket on his right arm - meaning that he’s a bouncer, and on duty. Tough catch.

Not that anything’ll stop Harry once he has his eye in. He surveys the crowd nearby, finds a guy who looks a bit like a knobhead, judging by the way his friends react to words Harry can’t hear over the pounding music. Perfect. He smiles.

Harry sticks his hand in his pocket and spells a cut into his palm. It stings - enough to draw plenty of blood, but no real damage. Then he puts on his best drunken stumble, his face going slack, and flings his vodka in the knobhead’s face.

“Oh! Oh god, I’m so sorry. My drink tasted weird so I was going to chuck it down the loo, and then when I saw your head I must have gotten confused...“

It’s a stupid taunt, so transparently contrived, but as predicted Mr Knobhead doesn’t take very kindly to it. As Harry leans forward to dab at the man’s face with his sleeve, he gets shoved back with an angry shout. He adds to the momentum by kicking himself off the ground, landing just at the bouncer’s feet with his bloody hand out of his pocket.

He looks down at it like he’s only just seen it - shock and confusion - and then up at the crowd. His eyes meet the bouncer’s, and he holds up the wound with his best helpless puppy eyes.

Seven minutes later, the knobhead has been thrown out on his arse, and Harry is sitting in a back room where the music vibrates in the cardboard-thin walls, shaking the calendar and staff rota tacked onto a cork board behind his head. The bouncer cleans his cut with a careful, concerned expression.

Four minutes after that, they’re at it. The office makes a nice change from toilets and alleys, and he doesn’t feel the need to scourgify the wall before _Svyatoslav_ and his gorgeous Russian accent fuck him all the way up the corkboard in time to Ebeneezer Goode.

_Has anybody got any salmon? Sorted._

—

For once it’s Ron that’s in a mega tizzy instead of Harry. Thanks to the meltdown tidy up of last week, there isn’t nearly as much to do, but Ron puts on another load of washing and actually separates and folds the dry stuff that’s been sitting on the kitchen counter for days. He shoves a pile at Harry, who levitates it out of sight onto his bedroom floor.

“It’s been like eight years or something,” Harry calls, flopping onto his sofa while Ron scrubs at a weird food stain on the wall above the oven. “She’s not going to take you back, no matter how clean the flat is.”

Ron gives him a dark look. Broody suits him. “I just don’t want her to think we’re slobs,” he replies tensely - even more so than he usually is when Hermione invites herself over for dinner. To be fair, she’s bringing the bloke this time so there’s more of a reason to stress. Must be easier to be in love with someone when their own beloved isn’t around. Goodness knows Harry finds it harder with ‘Mione about.

“She does _know_ us,” Harry responds. He picks up a cushion and shoves it under his back so he can more comfortably lie with his legs up the back of the sofa. He stares at Ron upside-down over the arm of the sofa, his glasses askew. “We doing takeaway, or am I cooking?”

Ron doesn’t cook, at least nothing more complex than a sausage sandwich. He isn’t allowed to, more accurately. Not since the beef in white wine incident. Harry isn’t a food snob or anything, but _really_ , who in the world cooks beef in _white_ wine? And the ginger, what was that about? No, Ron most certainly isn’t allowed to cook.

“I bought the fancy mushrooms, thought you could make that risotto,” Ron answers. Ugh. Hermione’s _favourite_. Harry loves making her happy as much as the next person, especially when it also makes Ron happy, but it’s a bloody pain in the arse when making them both happy also happens to make him miserable.

He lets the angry, childish thoughts pass through him - how come Ron doesn’t remember _Harry’s_ favourite dish? The answer is, of course, that he does. And his favourite song and his favourite flower and his favourite blinking washing detergent and… and all the other stuff they obviously know about each other after being housemates for so long. “‘kay. Anything else?”

Ron straightens, one hand on the small of his back as he surveys the faded stain. Turmeric. Not even Molly’s most secret household charms will get that out. He drops the scrubbing sponge onto the side with a resigned sigh and steps to the sink to rinse off his hands. Harry watches from his comfortably uncomfortable position on the sofa.

“I ordered a blackcurrant torte,” Ron informs him. Harry feels a grin pulling at his cheeks. Lucky lucky, so Hermione isn’t the only person he’s trying to keep on side tonight.

Harry slides his legs down and sits up. The world spins dizzily around him for a second. “Fine,” he says, hanging an arm over the back of the sofa as he pulls Ron’s eye to meet his. “Bribe accepted, I’ll make the risotto but can you please stop fluttering about like a panicked moth?”

Ron stops mid-flutter with the sponge back in his hand. “Have you seen me?” He asks. Yes, Harry has seen a lot of him. Not as much as he’d like. “People my size don’t flutter, we… we barge and charge and move purposefully.”

“Like a manly man,” Harry confirms solemnly, dropping his head to rest against his upper arm. He’s got no qualms about coming across less than a million percent macho. After the last couple of weeks, he feels so tired he’s not sure he cares about coming across as human at all. He’s a slime, a cave-crawling ooze heaving itself sluggishly from one place to the next, absorbing everything in its path.

-*-

With ten minutes to go, the food under stasis and the torte safely hidden away where only Harry can find it, Ron traps him in the kitchen. It’s not that difficult to do, considering how small the room is - more like a corridor leading on from the end of Harry’s sofa. But Ron stands in the door in a way that makes Harry think he’s being kept inside.

“Alright?” Harry asks, because that’s the normal sort of thing to say. He doesn’t, for instance, give any flirtatious or inviting looks, or comment on how much sexier Ron looks in his fitted shirt. Though in truth, Harry prefers the homely knitted jumpers and jeans, sockless feet and uncombed hair. Glasses and a newspaper and _yes, love._ But that’s just him.

Ron’s nerves have skyrocketed in the last few minutes, evidenced by the steady trod of his footsteps pacing back and forth through the flat until just now. “I have to tell you something,” he says. His tone and expression are serious, making Harry’s heart shudder at the possibility of his worst fears coming to life. Ron’s moving out. He’s fallen in love. He’s dying.

Oh God, Hermione’s bringing her husband for this because she knows she’ll need the extra support. Harry finishes clearing away the newly cleaned chopping board and knives, forcing himself into a casual pace. “Sounds ominous,” he says, and is quite pleased with himself for the convincing amusement in the words.

“I’m serious,” Ron says back, one hand holding onto the narrow door frame as if he might fall over without it. His scalp almost brushes the top. Harry likes them tall. “I don’t know how to explain it. I… I may have lied to Hermione, a few times.”

Of course it has to come back to Hermione. Sometimes Harry wants to grab Ron by the shoulders and shake him, scream in his face. _She doesn’t love you, but I do. I’m right here you fucking prat_. “Right..?” Harry doesn’t mean to sound glib, but they both lie to Hermione constantly. It’s the only way to fend off her unrealistic expectations. Like when she thought they’d show up to her wedding in matching ties, or something. Harry’d made up some story about losing his and having to get a last minute replacement, and Ron had spent most of the day avoiding them both - something which they bring up to tease him as often as possible.

Ron shrugs uncomfortably, as if sensing Harry’s memory. “It wasn’t supposed to ever- I mean, it’s… You know.”

“Not yet, I don’t,” Harry replies with a helpless grin. He hasn’t seen Ron this flustered in ages, it’s amazing. And cute, though he’ll keep that bit to himself because he’s not sure Ron would appreciate the thought, being a very masculine manly man and all.

Before Ron can try to explain any further, the doorbell rings. Harry steps forward, expecting his mate to get out the way, but Ron’s hand tightens its grip on the frame. He looks positively panic-stricken.

Harry sighs. “You invited Malfoy or something, didn’t you?”

“What?” Ron gapes, frowning. He shakes his head. “No, just Mione and what’s his face. I have to tell you-“

The doorbell rings again. Harry lifts his eyebrows. “Well? You going to tell me so we can let them in out of the rain, or are we letting them drown? ‘Cause I’m cool either way.” He steps closer, hoping the awkwardness of them being close will drive Ron out of the doorway. It doesn’t.

“It’s hard,” Ron whines, and Harry rolls his eyes, putting a hand on Ron’s arm and catching his gaze.

“Look: whatever it is, I’ll just go along with it,” he says comfortingly. Ron’s arm is warm and firm under his palm. He smells like his shop - bitter coffee pinched with the sweet scent of dried fruit teas. “If you think I’m gunna put my foot in it, just give me a nudge under the table and I’ll shut up.” Ron doesn’t move, and real worry starts to twist in Harry’s stomach - but they don’t do serious, so he ignores it. The doorbell rings a third time, two urgent bursts trilling through the flat. Harry lowers his head, looking up his lashes at Ron’s uncertain frown. “Yeah?”

Ron nods finally, looking every bit the man signing his own death warrant, and lets Harry slip by towards the flat door with its little phone buttons for buzzing people in. “Sorry, thought the food was gunna burn and Ron was on the shitter,” he says into the crackly phone. He’s never heard anything coming out of it, so he’s not sure people down there can hear him either, but a moment later the wall shakes with the force of the heavy door downstairs slamming shut so he assumes Hermione’s made it inside. He turns back to Ron. “You gunna be okay? Honestly, that torte will get you real far. I’ll go along with whatever.”

Ron turns away and opens the half-fridge between them so that Harry can only see his long legs and his fingers holding the door. Hermione knocks outside, and Harry’s hand is already turning the handle when Ron blurts out his confession quickly: “I told her we’re a couple.”

Then Harry’s trapped in a whirlwind of cheek kisses, watery hugs, comments and exclamations about how the decor has or hasn’t changed since Hermione was last here - “and you’ve met Peter, of course. Peter, isn’t this window so lovely? Harry, you look great! So much better rested now, aurors really don’t...”

Harry lets it all happen to him, and before he knows it they’re sitting around the coffee table eating risotto out of bowls in their laps, coats dripping rain onto the entranceway floor behind them. Harry has to sit up straight because a. he’s sharing the sofa with two other people, and b. his spine seems to have fused stiff in the pose of a meerkat lookout. He keeps trying to catch Ron’s eye, but his housemate avoids him.

“I’m so sorry about how it all came out,” Hermione says, carefully picking out a perfectly balanced mouthful of arborio rice, mushroom and celery on her spoon. Harry blinks at her, trying to remember the conversation so far. Right, Auror Fevorro. “So horrible, the things people say. Ron explained everything.”

“Did he,” Harry replies flatly, stirring his own risotto about in a more disorderly way. It’s something to look at other than his friends. “Well, that’s just like him. Always explaining stuff really well, telling you exactly what’s up in a super timely fashion so you have time to make plans.”

“He was never like that with me,” Hermione laughs, then puts a hand on Harry’s arm. He tries not to jump, looks up to meet her eye. “I know I wasn’t supposed to know, and I hope I never made you feel uncomfortable. It was your little secret, so I tried not to bring it up.” The way she scrunches her nose like that makes him want to implode.

“How long have you been together?” Peter the personality vacuum asks from her other side. He is unobtrusive and average in every way Harry can imagine, and nowhere near good enough for Hermione. 

He does sometimes ask very good questions though. Harry puffs out his cheeks. “Ohh I don’t know, how long..?” He looks at Ron, who glances away, scratching his beard awkwardly.

“Uh, don’t remember. Five years?”

_Five years!_ Harry has a hard time stopping his eyes from bulging. Five years? He told Hermione they’ve been going out for that long? Why in the fuck.

“Closer to ten, surely,” Hermione interjects, her eyes rolling up to look at the ceiling in an attempt to recall. “What year did we break up? Nine years ago, I suppose- oh, Peter, have you heard this story?”

Ron slides down his armchair a bit, shoulders hunched. Harry determinedly eats a spoonful of risotto and pretends that everything is fine. “Oh yes, tell us,” he intones, speaking to Hermione but keeping his gaze locked on to Ron’s face.

“Actually,” she says excitedly. “I’ve never heard _your_ side before.” Shit.

“It’s embarrassing,” he replies quickly, then realises that’s likely to have the opposite effect to the one he wants. He can hardly tell his half of the lie when he doesn’t know what Ron’s already said. Not even for a blackcurrant torte. “Uh, I’ve not… Ron’s never really told me his bit, actually.”

Hermione gasps in outrage, and Harry ducks his head down to eat more risotto without drawing attention back to himself. Distraction successful. “Ron! I can’t believe you!”

_Me neither_ , Harry gripes.

“There’s not much to tell,” Ron fields, holding up his hands defensively. Foolish - he should know by now that no physical or magical defence can hold out against Hermione on a mission.

“Not much-“ she starts, then turns animatedly to Peter on her other side. “It’s just the loveliest little story. Everyone was expecting me and Ron to get engaged any day - I know, I _know_. Can’t believe I ever thought that would work out, but anyway-“

“Merlin, please stop.”

For a second Harry isn’t sure who said it: him or Ron. He checks himself. No, it was definitely Ron. He probably doesn’t want to hear Hermione talking about how they were almost married and now she thinks that’s such a bad thing, like their love was nothing et cetera. As much as it must be hurting, Harry doesn’t feel particularly charitable towards his best mate right now. He drags himself back into the conversation. “No, don’t. I’d love to hear it,” he says. “I can’t believe Ron never told me any of this.” Ron’s ears redden satisfyingly at that nugget of truth.

Hermione sits back so she can talk to Peter and Harry at the same time, looking back and forth between them. “This was what, six months after you and Ginny broke up? Ron takes me out into the garden at the Burrow, right to this lovely secluded spot with the roses. It’s all a bit overgrown now, Pete, you mightn’t have noticed them, but they were so pretty then. And he was so nervous, I was convinced! Utterly certain he was going to propose.” Ron groans, but they all ignore him. “So you can imagine how shocked I was when he told me we had to break up! I know now it was for the best of course, but at the time I was _heartbroken_.”

Harry gapes. He feels the muscles in his arms going slack and melty. “W-wait. I thought-“ He glances at Ron then back to Hermione, muddled. “Weren’t you the one who broke up with him?” Even if Ron lied about him and Harry going out, it doesn’t make sense that Hermione thinks he was the one to break up with her… Unless- yeah, Ron probably felt shit being the one who got dumped, so he obliviated her and then dumped her instead.

It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.

“Ronald!” Hermione squeaks, even more outraged than before.

“‘Mione, don’t,” Ron sighs in response. He sounds tired out, and Harry can empathise. He feels suddenly hollow, exhausted, confused. This is like some weird, twisted version of a dream.

“He should know,” Hermione responds hotly. It’s followed by a silent and implied _honestly, Ron._ She wrinkles her nose at Harry again. “You should know. He’s loved you for ages. I was sat there crying into the rose bush, and then I heard this great hulking sob and I turned around and he was _bawling his eyes out_ right with me _._ Thought he was being a mighty prat, throwing away our life together to chase some silly unrequited feelings you’d never return, but here you are! All these years later, still going strong.”

She nudges Harry’s shoulder with her own, shocking him out of his temporary paralysis. The half-eaten bowl of risotto falls out of his limp hand, splattering and ringing over the floorboards.

“Shit,” Harry says, standing and breaking their contact. He looks down at the risotto on his foot, and can’t process it. He’s forgotten how to think. “I’ll go… grab some kitchen roll.”

He doesn’t look at Ron as he circles round the sofa. He doesn’t pause as Hermione calls out that she’s already banished the mess. He’s not really going to the kitchen, anyway. He strides into his bedroom, closes the door, and then lies down on the floor on the other side of the bed where no one will see him if they peek inside.

What the fuck?

_What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the actual shitting fuck?_

-*-

Harry opens his eyes at the sound of his creaking bedroom door.

“Harry?” Ron calls softly, followed by the tread of his socks on Harry’s carpet. Harry turns onto his side, away from the door, but that only alerts Ron to his location. “They’re gone.”

Harry says nothing.

“I brought in the torte,” Ron offers.

The seconds stretch between them, and then Harry scowls and sits up begrudgingly. Ron sits on the end of his bed, and Harry takes the plate out of his outstretched hand. The entire dessert is on it. He can’t even complain that someone’s eaten any. His favourite tiny dessert fork sits on top, a random charity shop find from one of their rarely aligned days off together. “I hid it,” Harry says accusingly. No one was supposed to find the torte.

“Extended space behind the pipes under the sink, yeah. It’s where you always hide stuff,” Ron answers, and Harry aches to feel happy about this shared knowledge, but he can’t.

“This buys you the chance to explain yourself,” he says, keeping the frown plastered on his brow. Not that it requires much effort. He crosses his legs and rests the plate across his ankles.

“So, uh, I told Hermione we’re in a relationship,” Ron starts, leading with the obvious. “Which, obviously, we are not.”

The torte tastes delicious as usual: sour and sweet. “When?” Harry asks. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Ron fidgeting with his hands. No newspaper to hide his discomfort behind.

“When-? Ah. I guess, when she got engaged,” Ron says. Harry tries to remember how long ago that was. Years. Hermione’s believed for _years_ that Ron’s in a secret relationship with Harry, and somehow it never came up in conversation? Oh, God. The matching ties. The joint presents. The love songs vinyl. “When she told me, she just… had this look of _pity_ in her eyes. Like _oh isn’t it so sad about Ron_ . So I sort of blurted it out, and then realised how stupid it was and told her you’re not _out_ and she wasn’t supposed to know and- and I didn’t know you’re actually gay.”

Harry scores neat lines into the purple top of his dessert. He builds a spider web pattern, then stabs a hole where the spider would go. “But you don’t really love me, right?” he asks, twisting his fork about in the hole until the pastry starts flaking up to the surface in pieces.

The pause feels like a million years, like Harry’s soul hanging from the edge of a cliff, fingers slipping one by one. “No,” Ron says eventually. “Of course not, Harry. That’d be so weird, wouldn’t it? Me and you. We’re _mates_.”

Harry falls, but it’s okay. He tells himself it’s okay. All he’s been doing since he stomped into this room is building the net to catch him. Convincing himself that it won’t matter if this one hopefully true bit of the lie is just that: part of the lie. Fabricated so that Ron could break up with Hermione years ago, and then built on out of childishness. It’s such a Ron thing to do. Silly lies to avoid conflict and drama, except usually he gets caught and taken the piss out of much sooner than this.

Harry has also been working up the righteous anger he knows he should feel. He’s been _used_. For years. By his best friend. He doesn’t bother asking if Ron was ever going to come clean about it.

He scoops up the mushy mess he just made of the spider. Still delicious. So all those silly romance books with characters saying their food suddenly tastes like ash, all meaning gone, are just as rubbish as he’s always suspected. His throat does rebel a bit when he swallows, though. He feels nauseous. That much is to be expected, right?

It’s been a shit couple of weeks. His fuckbuddy dumped him, he lost his job, and the recipient of his love betrayed him and then told him frankly that the feeling is not returned. “Okay,” he replies. He doesn’t want to say any more than that, because he can feel everything hovering too close to the surface. There’s a part of him that wants it out, done with. To tell Ron how he feels, half out of spite so that he feels extra shit for what he’s done - and half because it feels so heavy all of a sudden. He wants rid of the burden of loving Ron. Harry reckons he should be crying right about now. Maybe that comes later. He stabs another hole in the torte. “Any other big lies I should know about? Ron died in an accident last year, and you’re actually Snape in polyjuice? You secretly hate _Expel Me, Arm Us_?” Oh, here we go. The bitterness is finally rising to the surface, like oil.

“Of course I love them,” Ron says, offended. “How could I hate the creators of Unrequited, eh?”

He loves the band, but he doesn’t love Harry. It feels like an intentional slight, somehow. ”We should-“ Harry pauses to swallow. It’s all coming up now, the grief. He never believed for a second that Ron would love him back, not for a moment through all these years, yet the truth of it hits him out of nowhere. He feels stupid, suddenly, to have spent all this time pining after Ron for no reason at all. “I might take a holiday, or something.”

“Harry?”

He lets his head fall into his hands, hiding imminent tears. “It’s nothing- just.” His voice is weird. So hard to convince someone that nothing’s wrong when you sound like you just got stabbed in the leg very slowly with a fork. “Trust, you know? You broke my trust and I… I need to work out how I feel about that.”

-*-

Harry deals with his grief and stress the same way he’s dealt with it for years - sex. He doesn’t want the hassle of people and feelings, just that raw, animalistic brain-shut-off feeling of being fucked until he can’t tell a hippogriff from a horse. If he can just… drown out everything else for long enough, then maybe it’ll go away. Maybe the pain will disappear while he’s not looking. This is the furthest thing he knows from love. The opposite of love. Destruction.

He only means to be gone for a week, maybe two at most. Keeps paying rent on the flat, keeps floating the losses of Ron’s shop even as he turns away owl after owl. He goes to Andromeda first but she doesn’t want him anywhere near Teddy, which just turns into one more thing not to think about. Minerva’s open invitation to come and run some DADA extracurriculars at Hogwarts is also understandably off the table and he doesn’t want to see Hermione just yet, so he crashes with Nev and Luna.

Not that he’s really there that much - before he knows it, he’s built a new routine. He works Monday to Friday from nine until seven and hits the bars in the evening, more often than not finding a muggle to shag with diminishing discretion. On Saturdays he wears a glamour to the clinic to check he hasn’t caught anything despite his charms, and then proceeds to get blackout drunk until Monday comes back round and he drags his hungover arse into work again.

Twelve weeks. He does it for twelve weeks, before he cracks.

“Harry, you in there?”

Harry groans, flops slowly onto his back and blinks up at the blurry, shadowed ceiling. The weird fish-shaped hole in the window blind lets in a single shaft of bright light, while letting him know with its strangeness that he’s in the spare room of a house occupied by Luna Lovegood.

“I’m coming in, okay? Harry? I’m coming in,” Neville calls through the door. Too loud. Too damn loud.

The sudden light from the doorway is so bright that even if he knew where his glasses were, Harry wouldn’t be able to see anything. He throws a sluggish arm over his eyes and groans louder. The mattress bounces - Neville sitting at the foot of it. Harry keeps his eyes and mouth shut. He’s not sure any of the phrases coming to mind right now would be very productive considering that Nev’s let him stay in the spare room for ‘just one more week’ eleven times now.

His head pulses as he comes fully awake, and the horrible, familiar feeling of hangover nausea climbs his stomach. “It’s Sunday, right?” he croaks, just to check. He can’t think why Nev would be here. Unless Harry’s being kicked out.

“I brought you a hangover potion,” Neville offers, poking him in the hip.

“Don’t want it.” As much as hangovers suck, they don’t suck half as bad as reality. Plus he’s still a little bit drunk and he wants to hold onto that.

Neville sighs. “They know you’re here, you know. I’ve been getting owls non-stop since yesterday.”

Augh, it was only a matter of time. Harry presses his arm harder into his face, sprouting purple splodges in front of his eyeballs. “From who?” he asks.

“Hermione. Ron. It’s quite the story, and I’m not surprised you don’t want to think about it, but it’s been long enough now, don’t you reckon?” Neville nudges him again.

Long enough? No. Not long enough yet. “I don’t want to go back,” Harry grumbles into the darkness of his elbow. Once the words are out, he recognises them for the lie they are. He wants to go home. He wants it so badly, but not like this. He wants what it was before, the bliss of not knowing _for sure_ that his feelings weren’t returned. The smell of coffee, looks shared over the top of a newspaper. The life he lived for so many bloody years, the great big lie he told himself - _this is enough._

“You don’t have to go back. You can move out, find another fla-“

“No.” Harry cuts him off. No. He curls up, scowling as he pulls his knees into his chest. He doesn’t want another flat, another flatmate. “I can’t do that,” he chokes. Merlin, shit. He’s going to cry. Bloody hell, he’s too hungover for this. The tears smudge against his arm, pooling against his cheeks and eyebrows so that he has to put a pillow over his face instead to absorb them. “I can’t… can’t have what I want. I don’t want to hope any more, it hurts. It hurts so fucking much.”

“W-wait, uh… Sorry, you’re saying..?” Neville stammers. Clearly wasn’t looking to deal with Harry’s _feelings_ today, but then neither was Harry. This is all Nev’s fault for bringing it up in the first place. “Can you just clarify for me, exactly what it is you want?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Harry replies harshly. “It doesn’t bloody matter. I can’t…”

“Stop,” Nev says, in more of a confused tone than a commanding one. “Sorry, stop for just a second. Are you-? I mean, do you… like Ron?”

“ _Do I like Ron?”_ Harry all but wails. Does he bloody like Ron? Does the moon reflect sunlight? Do centaurs shit in the Forbidden fucking Forest? He pushes the pillow against his face, curling up tighter around it.

Neville tries to wrestle the pillow away. “No no, look. I don’t know what the situation is, but- Harry, for fuck’s sake let go. Merlin!”

Harry releases his grip on the pillow, mostly because it’s a lost cause anyway. Neville’s a fucking _machine_ these days. With his head pounding worse than ever, and the combined sicknesses of his heart and hangover, Harry tries his best to sink into the mattress instead of hiding behind the pillow. He just has to become one with the mattress. Fade away...

“I’m sorry,” Nev says. He doesn’t sound apologetic at all. “But I’ve let you stay here for months with no questions asked, and it’s about time. ‘Cause I’m starting to think you’re here for the simple reason that you and Ron are massive bloody pillocks.”

“I’m stupid. I know it already,” Harry grumbles. He doesn’t need to hear about how much of an idiot he’s been for so many years. Hasn’t he beaten himself up about it enough? Isn’t he doing the best he can to punish himself? All these one night stands, the complete opposite of what he wants.

Neville hits him on the shoulder. “Yes. You’re a prat, honestly. You’re clearly not thinking straight so I’ll leave you in a minute, but hear me out first because your stories simply don’t add up. Hermione says Ron’s an ass who lied about you two going out, yeah?”

Harry grunts in response.

“And Ron also says he’s an arse for the same reason. But from his letter, the lay of the land is this: he’s a straight guy who fell in love with his mate, who despite being gay doesn’t return the feeling.”

Harry’s muscles stiffen. His foot twitches.

“But talking to you, I get the intuition that you _do_ , so really I’m just trying to work out what the actual hell is going on,” Neville finishes.

Harry sits up slowly, scowling at the blurry form by his legs. “What?” He asks groggily. He must have misheard. Or Neville misunderstood, or something. He tries not to let his heart run away with him. Tries not to build any more hope, because it won’t survive another dashing.

“You love him, right? Sorry if I’m wrong, but… you know, all the crying and general self destruction _screams_ heartbreak and… well.” Neville shrugs, then hands Harry his glasses and a hangover potion. “Am I wrong?”

-*-

The Dark Arts is a muggle shop, much to the confusion of George who was expecting some ridiculous prank coffee collaborations out of the whole ordeal - if Ron was going to drop out of Auror training to chase the perfect cup of life-sustaining coffee, then the least he could do was ensure his brothers benefitted as well. To be fair, he did finally get his Farting Beans last year, and thanks to Ron they make a genuinely good brew. Apart from the unfortunate side-effects, that is.

The street is quiet, just a few pedestrians strolling along the pavement to either side of the narrow one-way street. Harry crosses the road after a bin lorry grumbles past, a sign of the early morning. The DA sits between an up-market chippie on the corner and a wool shop with a pretty, colourful display.

He can’t help but smile seeing the exterior of Ron’s little coffee bean and tea blend shop. It suits him. Quirky but mellow, with a big wooden sign over the door. The display shows a range of coffee beans with strengths from 0 (“the experience of a good coffee without the shakes!”) to 7 (“actual rocket fuel, no joke”), arranged diagonally on a tilted shelf.

Harry’s procrastinating, he knows. Standing on the corner where no one can spy him out of the shop window, he kicks a few loose bits of gravel around the cracked concrete paving stones, hands behind his back and a frown on his face. A teenage boy cycles past along the road and gives him a jeer for no reason he can fathom.

He’s dressed up muggle today, no robes or fancy shoes. Okay, so this might be one of his nicest shirts, and he may have ironed it. And he tried to do a thing with his hair, which he blames for most of his nervousness, because clearly it looks stupid and Ron’s going to laugh. At least, he hopes so.

Merlin’s hairy arse, what’s he doing? He doesn’t even have a plan beyond showing up. He steps towards the shop door, then groans and spins away, raising a hand to press back the ridiculous tumble of thoughts in his brain.

Ron said _no_. He literally said it with his mouth, right to Harry’s face… Then wrote Neville a letter directly contradicting that. Did he write Harry that letter too? Is that what all those owls he sent away were carrying? Or is this just another layer to the lie?

He doesn’t think he could cope with that. Not now, after so many ups and downs.

“Come on, you ridiculous sodding excuse for a dark-lord vanquishing wizard,” Harry mutters to himself, pacing to the curb and back. “Get your arse in gear and go in there, and- and do… do the thing.” _Whatever that is_.

He pushes the door open before he can change his mind, jumping a little at the sudden sound of a bell ringing overhead, then forcing himself to calm. The decor is rustic industrial. Reclaimed wooden shelves on transfigured brass brackets, exposed brick and oversized light bulbs with glowing orange filaments. Big round tins of coffee beans and tea leaves sit along every shelf, ready to be opened and sniffed. He’s hit with a heady mixture of aromas - deep coffee, sweet fruits and lavender. It smells wonderfully like Ron, magnified.

He’s half expecting a shop assistant or employee, but no. It’s Ron. _His_ Ron. Right there. Leaning on the counter with his elbows, frowning down at a clipboard as he chews the end of his biro and scratches his trimmed beard. He doesn’t look up despite the loud bell, so Harry stands frozen for a few seconds before hurriedly stepping aside and kneeling in front of a low shelf where he can’t be seen.

Damn.

They’re alone. Surely these are the ideal circumstances, so why’s his heart hammering so much? He grabs a nearby tin and opens it with shaking hands. _Sweet Dreams_ , the label says. One of those calming evening teas. It smells like flowers, and Harry anchors himself to the sensation, clutching the big tin to his chest.

“Is someone there?” Ron calls, apparently now done with his task. “Can I help you?”

Harry takes in another lungful of _Sweet Dreams_ and then stands up. “Hey.”

Ron’s mouth falls open, then he drops the biro and stands straighter. Snaps his jaw shut with a loud click. “Hey,” he echoes.

Harry tightens his grip on the tin.

“You, um… You good?” Ron says hesitantly. His eyes flick down to the tin, then back up to Harry’s face. “Want me to pack some of that up for you?”

The potential loss of his newfound precious tin of soothing tea is not something Harry feels that he needs, on top of everything else. “No,” he replies quickly. Too quickly. “No, I’ll just… hold onto it, if that’s okay.”

Pause. “Yeah, that’s fine. I… yeah, it’s just that’s- two hundred quid’s worth of tea. So…”

Harry’s fingers squeak over the metal. He stops himself from asking who exactly paid for the stock in the first place, because it would probably be a bit counter productive to the whole making-up process. “I won’t drop it,” he says instead. He feels slow and silly. This is ridiculous. “Look - I came to chat. Can we go somewhere? Out back, or something?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” Ron jumps to the end of the counter and lifts the hatch to let Harry through. “No one comes in this time of the morning, anyway.”

They step through a white-painted door to the back room, which houses a small newspaper-laden table and one chair, next to a counter with a sink and a kettle. A little home away from home for Ron.

“Do you want some of that?” Ron asks, pointing to the tin. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

So Harry sits awkwardly in the chair, tin resting on his lap while Ron bustles unnecessarily, preparing himself a coffee to go along with Harry’s tea. His manic energy puts Harry even more on edge, so far from the calm and soothing Ron he’s used to. He wants to make him stop, slow down. Put his arms around Ron’s waist and close his eyes and squeeze their chests together until their heartbeats slow into one steady rhythm.

The kettle shakes violently on its cradle, and Ron turns to face Harry, holding a small measuring spoon like a lifeline. “Do you mind, uh..?” He gestures towards the tin.

Harry nods but doesn’t hold it out. He’s not sure he can move his arms at this point, so Ron will just have to come here and scoop it out of his lap. He drops his head to hide his gaze while the spoon agitation releases a fresh waft of sleepy tea goodness. He watches Ron’s bony fingers, and his stomach swoops. He feels something rising, bursting in his chest.

“I love you.”

Ron drops the spoon and it clatters loudly against the side of the tin.

Shit. He didn’t mean to just blurt it like that. Harry looks up, terrified of what Ron’s reaction might be but even more frightened to miss it. He lets more words spill out of his brain, all of them, to hold off the moment when Ron will have to reply. “I always have. I mean- not _always_ , but for a long time. A really long time. That’s what I came to say. I… I love you.”

How is it possible to feel like he’s flying, soaring, finally free of this unspoken burden, yet still falling out of the sky into a pit of spikes? He stops breathing.

Ron’s ears flush instantly a deep shade of red and he covers his mouth with a hand. He shakes his head. Frowns. Nods. Lowers his hand again. “I’m… I’m straight. Mostly,” he says.

Harry forces a grin, thin as satin stretched over his face. The cool tin has warmed under his palms. “Hey straight mostly, I’m Harry.”

Ron huffs a small, disbelieving laugh and wipes away the tears that are just starting to gather in his eyelashes. “You twat,” he says, then laughs again. “I can’t believe- I’m such a… I mean-“

Harry raises his eyebrows. He knows now, reading Ron’s face, that _Sweet Dreams_ is going to be his favourite tea for the rest of his life. Ron’s never getting this tin back. 

“I think I love you too,” Ron states, his arms rigid by his sides and his entire face so red the freckles are barely visible at all. Such a simple phrase, so small. Six words to unravel the tension prickling across Harry’s skin

“You _think_?” he challenges, choking on tears and relief. It’s such a Ron way to respond. Hedging his bets in case it’s the wrong answer.

Ron steps up hesitantly, awkwardly puts his hand on the tin where it almost touches Harry’s fingers. “No, no. I… I know I do. It’s just, towards guys, I’ve never- It’s just you, Harry.” He moves his hand down and grabs Harry’s fingers. “It’s you. I love you. I really, really do.”

Harry nods, speechless. He still can’t move his arms. He wants to, but they won’t listen and he has to sit there rigid, shocked. _I love you_. Ron kneels in front of him, chuckling at their joint idiocy. “Hey… Hey, come on Harry,” he murmurs, tapping their hands together lightly with a growing grin. “You in there?”

Harry’s hands come unstuck and he lifts them to his face, bringing Ron with them. He kisses the middle knuckle of each hand, then lowers them onto his lap. He takes a breath. “I want to state for the record that you are a total fucking wanker, a shitstain and a dunderhead for all the lies, and if you ever do anything like that again, I’ll dump you and tell Molly you gave me an STD,” he warns, and looks Ron right in the eyes. The gorgeous, loving bloody eyes he can now tell have always looked like that - have always looked _at him_ like that. He smiles. “And I want to kiss you now, if that’s okay.”

Before he can move to make good on his words, Ron swoops down and bumps their noses together, still grinning like a silly idiot. Then he kisses Harry, soft and careful as if the world might break around them.

-*-

Harry sighs loudly, hanging his robe on a peg by the front door. Then he sighs even louder as he rolls over the back of the sofa to flump onto the cushions, bashing his feet on the overburdened coffee table. He glances at Ron before sighing a third time.

He’s reading the paper, as usual. Probably nothing interesting - Harry’s been back at the Ministry for a month now and most of the hubbub has died down. Begged extenuating circumstances and got himself back on the force, on probation. It’s not yet newspaper-official that he has a boyfriend, and he hopes to keep it private a bit longer. No scandals. A nice, normal Tuesday. Ron picks up his mug, eyes still glued to the paper, takes a sip and then sets it back down on the arm where it sticks out at a funny angle.

“Tough day, love?” he asks, scratching the side of his nose.

“No,” Harry pouts, heart singing. “Just tired.” He shuffles to the end of the sofa closest to Ron, but his boyfriend still doesn’t look up. His _boyfriend,_ Ron Weasley, who _loves_ him. This is so ridiculous.

“Mmm, join the club,” Ron mutters. “Still, I turned a profit this month, so there’s that.” He licks his thumb and forefinger, flipping to the next page.

Typical Ron behaviour.

Already fed up with subtlety, Harry scrambles off the sofa and plants himself on Ron’s lap, smooshing the paper between them in a show of childishness he knows he’ll be forgiven for.

Ron laughs, takes off his reading glasses with one hand as he shuffles the newspaper out from between them, then holds them out to either side with an expression of bemused impatience. Harry takes advantage of the opening to turn round into a more comfortable position, his shoulder against the back of the chair, feet up on Ron’s lap. He curls his hand around Ron’s neck and smiles as the man’s ears turn red.

“I’ll get pins and needles again,” Ron complains, but he closes his arms around Harry anyway, pulling him in close as he drops his glasses onto the floor.

“I love you,” Harry says. He can’t get over how amazing it is to be able to say it. He can say it any time, whenever he feels like it. All day, every day, forever. He wants to shout it out the window. He wants to run through the streets, right up to every stranger passing by and scream it in their faces.

He folds himself around Ron. Maybe he’ll go scream at random people later, when he’s not warm and comfortable and happy.

Ron gives him a squeeze and turns his head to plant a gentle kiss on Harry’s wrist, making them both smile. “I love you too, you pillock.”


End file.
